According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, in the US alone in 2012, 32 million tons of plastics were produced; 12.7% of the total world production of 251 million tons. In the US, about half (14 million tons) of the plastic was used for containers and packaging, 11 million tons was used for durable goods, and about 7 million tons for non-durable goods such as plates and cups. Of all the plastic only about 12 percent was recycled.
The concentration of plastics in the oceans has increased tremendously in the last 50 years as the overall waste level of plastic has increased from less than 1% to almost 13% of the waste stream. According to studies by the Five Gyres Institute in Los Angeles and as reported by the Washington Post on Dec. 10, 2014, there are now 5 trillion pieces of plastic floating in the ocean weighing more than 250,000 tons. Rather than evenly dispersing in the oceans, plastics tend to concentrate in the northern and southern gyres; the northern pacific gyre forms what some call the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”. Current estimates of the total size of the region ranges from 700,000 square kilometers (270,000 square miles—about the size of Texas) to more than 15,000,000 square kilometers (5,800,000 square miles); in other terms, 0.41% to 8.1% of the size of the Pacific Ocean. It has been estimated that 46,000 pieces of plastic exist within each square mile of the patch. Further, unlike organic debris, plastic tends to disintegrate into smaller and smaller units of the polymer until the molecular level is reached. The ingestion of the plastic particles by animals including fish and birds occurs at high rates in these regions. One 1996 study by Dr. Theo Colborn showed plastics in 97.6% of albatross chicks while others argue that the plastic and the associated leached chemicals have further entered the food chain as a result of the breakdown in the ocean. While the overall health effects have been debated, the concentrations of harmful chemicals seem to increase tremendously when in contact with plastics. Dr. Markus Erikson of the 5 gyres group in Southern California states, “Pollutants like PCBs, DDT, flame retardants, pesticides, and other hydrophobic persistent organic pollutants can stick to plastic particles at high concentrations—up to a million times higher concentration than the seawater around them.” Eventually, these chemicals then find their way to fish and then to humans.
Unfortunately, collecting said debris is a very difficult task for various reasons. Firstly, the tremendous size of the area that needs to be searched is extremely vast and the relative size of the debris to the size of the ocean is very small. Further, the use of large ships to collect the debris requiring personnel, fuel, supplies, and maintenance is expensive and not economical. In addition, marine environments are corrosive and rough and therefore collection and recycling systems that are too complex or require significant infrastructure have a high probability of malfunctioning or being damaged. Also, plastic and other organic material such as algae can be difficult to distinguish between each other. In addition, the use of a material such as wire or plastic thread or netting to collect the waste and bundle it together creates additional waste, maintenance, restocking, and cost issues.
The major thermoplastic resins used are polyethylene (low density, linear low density, and high density), polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polystyrene, and polyvinyl chloride. According to the Plastics Europe Market Research Group, in Europe plastic demand by resin type can be divide as follows:                Polyethylene (low density, linear low density, high density)—29%        Polypropylene—19%        Polyethylene terephthalate—6.5%        Polystyrene—7.5%        Polyvinyl chloride—11%        Polyurethane (which is a thermoset plastic)—7%        Other—20%        
In Europe almost 40% of this is concentrated in packaging uses primarily with Polyethylene and Polyethylene terephthalate (PET). In the US, approximately 25% PET use is for containers such as soda bottles (estimated to be 2.75 million tons as reported by Plastics News).
Without limitation, at sea, the plastic debris can be divided into several primary categories; mega debris (>100 mm), macro-debris (>20 mm in diameter, meso-debris (5-20 mm), and micro-debris (<5 mm). (Ryan P. G., Moore C. J., van Franeker J. A., Moloney C. L. 2009, “Monitoring the abundance of plastic debris in the marine environment”, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 364, 1999-2012. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0207).) Typically 40-80% of the mega and macro debris are plastic. (Derraik J. G. B. 2002, “The pollution of the marine environment by plastic debris: a review”, Mar. Pollut. Bull. 44, 842-852. (doi:10.1016/S0025-326X(02)00220-5).) Moore et al report in a 2001 study that the distribution of plastic in the Northern Pacific Gyre were as illustrated in FIG. 6.
Without limitation, the table above can be converted to a weight allocation (assuming a spherical pellet, flat film of 0.025 mm thickness and square, Styrofoam as a sphere with density of 0.0000365 g/mm3, pellets and film of density 0.001 g/mm3, fragments being ⅓ the volume of a cube, and filaments with a diameter of 0.1 mm) as illustrated in FIG. 6.
Without limitation, as shown by the shaded cells, the larger items contain the greatest weight distribution of plastic waste and it could be argued are the most important to remove as they breakdown into the greatest number of smaller particles over time.
The energy required and temperature required to reform plastic and fuse it to another piece is a function of the type of plastic. Without limitation, below are typical values:                Polyethylene (low density, linear low density, high density): Heat-Sealing Temperature 105-204 Degrees C., Specific Heat J/K-kg 1900-2300        Polypropylene: Heat-Sealing Temperature 140-205 Degrees C., Specific Heat J/K-kg 1700-1900        Polyethylene terephthalate: Heat-Sealing Temperature 115-170 Degrees C., Specific Heat J/K-kg 1200-1350        Polystyrene: Heat-Sealing Temperature 50-95 Degrees C., Specific Heat J/K-kg 1200        Polyvinyl chloride: Heat-Sealing Temperature 50-75 Degrees C., Specific Heat J/K-kg 1000-1500        
Without limitation, from the heat sealing temperatures and specific heat values above, the amount of energy required to bring the plastic in one square kilometer at 15 degrees Celsius to 150 degrees Celsius can be estimated at 350 g*0.001 kg/g*1500 J/k-kg*135 K=70,000 Joules.
In comparison, a 100 watt solar cell working for 5 hours per day at 10% efficiency would produce approximately: 100 W*3600 sec/hours*5 hours=180,000 joules.
In considering the chance that a piece of plastic floating in the ocean would make contact with another object one must consider the probability associated with the event. The surface area of the plastic in FIG. 6 can be extrapolated, without limitation, to the data of FIG. 7.
The largest surface area contributor as shown in Table 3 would be plastic film with an average mesh size of 1.89 mm2. The total surface area of the material described by Moore et al. would appear to comprise approximately 2.25 square meters/square kilometer or about 0.0002% of the ocean surface in the gyres. If considering the weight approximations and claims that 250,000 tons of plastic are at sea, these surface area values could be increased by as much as 100 times; therefore bringing the surface area value to range from 0.0002%-0.02% of the Pacific's surface area. According to the American Meteorological Society, Pacific Ocean currents range from 3-4 km/hour.
Without limitation, in considering the chance that a piece of floating plastic in a current will intercept the path of a collection device also in the current and is not powered, similar probability functions to those used to determine space debris collisions should be considered although not done in depth in this disclosure. Salvatore Alfano describes an approach to determining this in space “A Numerical Implementation of Spherical Object Collision Probability” in The Journal of Astronautical Sciences. Based on Table 2 approximately 250,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometer account for the largest amount of debris by weight; thus, if distributed evenly, each particle would exist in a 4 square meter zone or a two meter by two meter area. If the particle is located at the center of its 2 meter by 2 meter area, a mean radius of 1 meter would exist for each particle or 2 meters between particles. Assuming a minimum 1% deviation from the primary current of 3-4 km/hr, the plastic particles would move approximately 0.0083-0.011 msec relative to each other or another object in the current. Any collection system that is primarily passive in the manner in which it moves needs to be sized in order to account for the particle distribution and the chance that a plastic particle's path will intersect with the collection system.